lets talk about melonland, neocities, and adjacent.

melon designs websites for a very wide audience like melon's stuff is intended to be used by many groups of different folks so…. the fact that the forum is so blatantly lacking in very basic accessibility features is inexcusable to me.

it is a symptom of a wider trend i see in small web spaces where disabled people are thought of not LAST, but NEVER. and it's not even a trend, is it, when that's the default state of the world. and you'd think that the small web folks would be interested in providing a good and concrete space for the people whose lives are truly internet-centric; the disabled. people who live in extremely rural areas. people who cannot drive or who are solely dependent on others to get them places. homeschooled teenagers. uhhh Disabled People. and so on. you'd think, right? yet somehow the small web is not really a web in and of itself anymore, but rather more like a spiral of resentment towards “mainstream social media” and being “plugged in”. and I GET IT. i recognize that:

• for those who can do it irl socialization is necessary for health and you do need to have some time without technology AND
• mainstream social media is indeed horrific and does serious damage to the most vulnerable

….yet rarely is it the most vulnerable i see speaking out about this. so i am not trying to do a “i haven't seen this so it doesnt happen”, i am personally recounting my experiences and that's it: The people i see bashing mainstream social media are often the people who have big followings like hundreds and hundreds of neocities followers. or who are wellknown artists with private college degrees who do multiple cons a year. or who do a bunch of things IRL and just want a simple quiet place to post about it on divorced from everything else, because they do not rely on the web as the sole accessible source of socialization and a connection to the outside world. generally: people who use the internet because it's a hobby, something they can give up entirely—strive to— at any time, and when they do it will be with few to no mental health repercussions. to many people, it is just like drinking too much caffeine, or biting your nails when you're stressed.

the people i know who are similar to me—the housebound, the bedbound, the nonverbal and semiverbal—they largely say that while “mainstream” social media is often hostile to them, it is still ultimately a lifeline, and the hostility goes away with the block button and privacy features in most cases, the important part is learning to curate your space. there is often a more complex relationship with social media and the internet in the aforementioned groups. if you can't leave your house or your bed, how do you get your socialization and enrichment needs met? what is the easiest possible way (for most people anyway) to access the needs they cannot fulfill without some form of connection over distance? do you open up your email (most of which are horribly enshittified, another (completely justified) common complaint among the small web community) and type out a msg to someone else who may or may not reply within the next few weeks and call it a day, or do you open your phone and go on tumblr and post about your struggles for others who understand to provide support and commiserate?

but then social media comes with ableism, harmful jokes, and a general lack of understanding of these experiences. because disabled people and similar internet-reliant folks are never taken seriously and are always seen as ridiculous or paranoid or fakers or stupid when they discuss internet reliance and how it affects them in their daily lives. at the same time, i still see a general consensus: focus on curating your space, opening up with cautious optimism, block when needed, find the people who DO understand and fuck the rest. (of course, this is not applicable to real threats such as doxxing, which would obviously have an amplified impact for people in these situations, and that is a real conversation that needs to be had—its just not the same conversation as characterizing the internet and social media itself as a unique evil in the sense that the internet-reliant behavior is as if it's almost spiritually harmful, to me it feels somewhat similar to the “noo bro the detox juices really work the diet pills will help me for sure” people, or even the “enjoying things/engaging with things too much and too passionately taints you and is sinful” conservative mindsets, both done albeit mostly unintentionally.)

the people who rely on the internet the most are largely also many of the same groups who are notoriously very famously either forgotten about by society entirely or seen as a joke, a shameful status to have, a pitiful thing, something you deserve, or all; not favorably perceived despite there being no control in any of these situations.

melonland closes on mondays. i've written about this before. the reasoning given on the wiki is “partly to give everyone a break (especially moderators)”—- completely understandable, even if it does seem like there are… alternative solutions to moderation stress that don't involve routine 24hr forum closure—- “but also to act as a reminder that it's not good to always be online and connected - it's good to step back and appreciate the time we have.” now okay hold upppp. what if when i'm online, i AM appreciating it all? what if the time i have is best spent with my online friends, the only people in my life besides family who have ever been truly there for me with a sense of genuine compassion, and my appreciation of the world IS FOUND IN these people, because they give me hope?

i don't know, it's just like, do you have any physically disabled friends? do you have friends with myalgic encephalomyelitis who cannot leave their beds? do you consider us as potential friends? do you even consider our perspectives at al; or remember we exist when you create and brainstorm supposedly inclusive ideas for websites that ultimately when deployed lack accessibility in either an indirect sense—casually dismissive language, judgemental userbase to those they don't quite understand—or in a direct sense like the lack of photosensitivity warnings for websites plastered with gifs and bright colors, as well as the inability to turn off inaccessible fonts/colors/font-sizes without installing a browser extension—because it feels like the small web has “tunnel vision” when it comes to accessibility.

in terms of greater website accessibility among the general small web, it feels similar to like. the us american idea that you must be the most important thing and your comfort and needs come before the inclusion and health of others. which im aware sounds a bit dramatic but it really does feel similar to me; neocitykoweb users, you can focus your site on “being a personal space on the web just for you haha”, but if you have an about page, a resources page, or if you are A Community Forum Others Widely Use… the intended audience is obviously not just you anymore. and it's not like immoral to code with yourself in mind first and foremost right, but if you create a public site that excludes a significant portion of the world's population, people have a right to be critical/hurt.

you don't know because you don't go through it, but like, as a partime wheelchair user i can't go in a good 75% of places where i live and that's lowballing it, and no abled person who only ever walks will likely consider the full nuance of what i cannot do in public when i need to use my chair, because of inaccessible infrastructure+society limiting literally everything around me. it just doesn't become obvious the way it does to the people who, you know, can't get in the buildings they want to go through or down the store aisles they need items from because the paths are too thin or there are no accessible entrances etc. it's kind of like that—you don't even know who you might be excluding. maybe a blind individual would end up being your best friend… if you added alt text and accessible features to your site. maybe an epileptic individual could teach you a fuckton about webdev but they can't reach out to you because your /index page flashes bright colors everywhere every 3 seconds with no warning or ability to turn gifs off or change the theme. maybe some disabled person just wants to navigate the indie web and make a home there and make connections and it gets fucking tiring the amount of places that they cannot go to because just like irl, no one thinks of their existence.

don't get me wrong, like, i'm not saying we should let other people control every single thing on your site or your site's rules or whatever, you dont have to change your behaviors i cant control you i dont wish to. and i am not saying that there shouldn't be an encouragement of a healthy balance between constant doomscrolling or whatever and offline hobbies/activities. i would hope that this is not interpreted as saying such things. what i AM saying: take a long thinking session about why you want to learn webdev/html/css soooo bad but consider accessibility optional as if that is not a major part of learning those languages/topics. think about why you consider an internet reliant life to be lesser, embarrassing, or inherently deeply toxic. and try to learn more about all the various disabilities and reasons people have for being internet reliant.

tl;dr